Latin Kings

ARTICLES ABOUT LATIN KINGS BY DATE - PAGE 2

A man from Honduras has been arrested for gunning down an aspiring boxer as he sat on his family's porch on the Southwest Side in 2007, mistakenly thinking the teen was a rival gang member, a Chicago detective said. Alejandro Calderon, known as Alex, was a national Silver Gloves champion who avoided getting mixed up in gangs because he was too busy honing his fighting skills, his family said. Calderon was sitting with his sister and a family friend when he was shot in the head.

Federal authorities' attempt to dismantle the leadership of the Latin Kings gained new momentum as federal authorities today announced charges against the street gang's highest-ranking leader outside of prison, and 14 of its other leaders. The U.S. attorney's office has scheduled a 2 p.m. press conference to announce a racketeering indictment against the gang's hierarchy, mostly from Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. The group sought to enrich themselves through the drug trade and preserved their power through "acts of murder, attempted murder" and other crimes, according to a statement from federal prosecutors.

Four men were charged today with allegedly trying to kill an off-duty Chicago police officer in a Southwest Side shooting that one police source said erupted when they mistook the gang-enforcement officer for a gang rival. The officer -- whom Chicago Police Department officials declined to identify -- was driving home about 3 a.m. Thursday through a section of Little Village carved up as turf by the Latin Kings and Two-Sixers, rival gangs that have been fighting to dominate the local drug trade for decades.

A reputed Joliet gang member was sentenced today to 45 years in prison for driving an armed associate into enemy gang territory, resulting in the fatal shooting of a Berkeley man. Last month, a DuPage County jury convicted Robert Meza, 22, of first-degree murder for driving Antonio Aguilar, 20, of Addison in the early hours of Sept. 15, 2007, authorities said. The two tried to enter an apartment in the 300 block of Dale Drive in Addison, and when they found the door locked, Aguilar fired a gun through an apartment window, striking Lorenzo Salazar-Cortez, 22, of Berkeley, authorities said.

A fourth teenager has been charged in the brutal slaying of a 15-year-old boy who refused to support a gang the suspects belong to, police said. The boy was charged with murder in the May 1 beating, shooting and burning of 15-year-old Alex Arellano, but no further details were available this morning, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer David Banks said. Under Illinois law, anyone age 15 or older charged with first-degree murder is tried as an adult, but Chicago Police have in the past refused to disclose the identity of juveniles charged as adults.

One of four people wounded during a gang knife fight in Cicero this afternoon has died. A man in his 20's died at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, said Cicero town spokesman Elio Montenegro. Members of the Latin Kings and Ambrose street gangs clashed in the vicinity of the 6100 block of West Cermak Road about 1 p.m., ending with three people in serious condition at Loyola and a fourth person treated and released from MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, Montenegro said.

A third person -- this one a woman -- has been charged in connection with beating, shooting and setting fire to a 15-year-old Southwest Side boy who authorities said refused to acknowledge his assailants' gang . Alisa Campos, 22, of the 7800 block of Latrobe Avenue in southwest suburban Burbank, has been charged with the first-degree murder of Alex Arellano . Sources said she is accused of wielding a baseball bat used...

Murder charges were approved against a second teen implicated in the beating and fatal shooting of a 15-year-old Southwest Side boy who refused to acknowledge his assailants' gang, authorities said. The latest first-degree murder charges were filed against Edgar Silva, 18, of the 5100 block of South Albany Avenue, Chicago police announced this afternoon. Police did not release further information, including how Silva was involved in the crime. He was scheduled to appear for a bond hearing Friday, police said.

A 16-year-old gang member has been charged as an adult in the slaying of a 25-year-old woman who "did not appear to be the intended target," police said this morning. Dimitri Buffer, of the 7800 block of South South Shore Dr., was ordered held without bail today by Circuit Court Judge Ramon Ocasio III. Buffer was charged with first-degree murder in the Saturday night slaying of Jessica Bazan, who was fatally wounded in the abdomen as she sat in her car outside her niece's residence in the 8300 block of South Brandon Avenue on the Southeast Side.

Ignoring a plea by a prosecutor to send a signal of zero tolerance for street gangs, a federal judge today sentenced the "Supreme Inca," the No. 2 leader of the Latin King street gang, to the minimum 20 years in prison for drug conspiracy. While acknowledging that Fernando King, 38, was the leader of a gang responsible for narcotics trafficking and murder, U.S. District Judge David Coar said King could be sentenced only for the crimes for which he was convicted and not the broader destruction caused by the gang.